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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24416926">thank god we got our timing right</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffywonder/pseuds/fluffywonder'>fluffywonder</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Black Widow (Movie 2020), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>BAMF Natasha Romanov, BAMF Pepper Potts, BAMF Tony Stark, Depictions of Misogyny, F/M, Gen, What-If, all the badassery, minor but graphic violence, non-graphic but explicit sex, timeline rewrite AU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:14:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,555</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24416926</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffywonder/pseuds/fluffywonder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes one chance meeting between two people in 2004 to change the entire course of destiny.<br/><br/>Considering that those two people are Tony Stark, drunk rich weapons designer party boy, and Natasha Romanova, deadly Red Room operative, the whole thing is practically guaranteed to be a wild ride from beginning to endgame.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Natasha Romanov &amp; Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov/Tony Stark, Others to be added</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>111</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. are you going to kill me?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For this story, find a quick timeline of events below - will be updated as major events get added to new chapters. Some of the dates are canon MCU, and some aren't. These are just events to make a general note of, to keep the timeline straight - but individual dates will likely be mentioned if they're important in the context of a specific chapter.</p>
<p>  <b>Tony Stark</b>:<br/>Born 1970<br/>Parents died 1991<br/>Became CEO in name of Stark Industries in 1992, although Obadiah Stane retains control up until the start of the story (2004)<br/>Meets Pepper 2005<br/>Kidnapped mid-2006<br/><br/><b>Natasha Romanova</b>:<br/>Born 1984<br/>Brought to the Red Room 1987<br/>Encounters SHIELD for the first time late 2006<br/> <br/><b>General events:</b><br/>Cold War ended 1991<br/>Wanda Maximoff born 1992<br/>Maximoff house destroyed/parents killed by missiles 2002<br/><br/></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It starts with a dance. </p>
<p>He tucks her into his arms and whirls around the dancefloor with her, both of them letting coy looks and subtle but purposeful gestures do all of the talking. </p>
<p>He manages to secure a hotel suite, and he has already lost his tie before they’ve even stumbled over the threshold. </p>
<p>He is much more careful with her emerald-green gown than she is with his bespoke suit, but he doesn’t care as he leans in and tastes the fire that burns within her. </p>
<p>In the morning, he notes that she is infinitely more careful with him than she had been with his clothes, watching in silence as she traces the flat planes of his stomach. He knows he looks good for thirty-four, but it’s nothing compared to how she looks with her flawless skin and red hair spilling out in a tangle on the white bedding. He would put her age at nineteen or twenty. Young but legal – just the way he likes them. </p>
<p>“Do you have anywhere to be?” He finally breaks the silence that had descended on them the previous evening and never quite let them go even once they learned to move in sync with each other after a few false starts. The sounds they’d made hadn’t ever translated into anything resembling actual words. </p>
<p>“Yes.” Her voice is huskier than he’s expected, and it sends a thrill shooting down his spine. </p>
<p>“Now? I can have a car brought around.” </p>
<p>“I can manage, and it can wait just another moment.” Her voice also has a slight accent to it that he can’t quite place. He narrows it down far enough to somewhere in the far Eastern Europe, but he can’t get any closer than that, and he doesn’t want to make assumptions. </p>
<p>“If I ask you a question, do you promise not to kill me?”  </p>
<p>The indulgent smile he gets in response makes it clear that she thinks he’s joking. She lets the promise roll off her tongue anyway. </p>
<p>“Promise to keep your promise?” His tone is still light, teasing. </p>
<p>“Promise. Do ask before I take back my agreement,” she warns, letting an amused sort of sharpness seep into both her tone and her eyes. </p>
<p>“Was I your target or was I just a bad decision?” </p>
<p>She is too well-trained to give any outward sign that his question has rattled her in any way. </p>
<p>“I do not know what you mean – “ </p>
<p>“You do.” Her denial had been half-hearted at best, which only confirms to him that he’s on the right track. “There’s always something in the eyes that can’t quite be controlled. I’ve had enough spies hanging around that I know what it looks like.” And he has – he's more observant than dear Obie gives him credit for, even when he’s half out of his mind on the newest party favor of the week. Obie has never lifted a finger to help him out with any of the honeypotting attempts; his godfather says that it is all part of ‘becoming a man’ and that Tony must learn to deal with the dangers of this life on his own. Implied is that if Tony is stupid enough to get himself trapped in an unfavorable situation, then he doesn’t deserve any help, and Obie has only stepped in when Tony gets too close to spilling the highest-level company secrets, and that hasn’t happened since the days of Sunset Bain and Ty Stone. Since then, Tony’s dealt with infiltration attempts quietly but efficiently, and mostly without involving the press. Still, Tony has a nagging feeling that had this woman approached him in any of the usual ways, he would’ve tagged her as a spy immediately, as he has, but he would’ve let her run circles around him anyway. She might be a spy, but there’s something more refreshingly honest about her than he finds in most of the women that orbit him.</p>
<p>He shakes himself out of his thoughts in time to notice his companion watching him warily. He just raises an eyebrow at her. </p>
<p>“You were... an indulgence,” she admits, finally. It’s a surprisingly honest answer, and it leads him right to his next question. </p>
<p>“And are you going to kill me now?” </p>
<p>“Are you going to try to find me, now? Keep track of me? Turn me into the police?” </p>
<p>He huffs in amusement. “Darling, the police couldn’t hold you. No one that you didn’t explicitly allow could ever hold you down.”  </p>
<p>He’s proud that his remark makes her smile in a genuine sort of way. </p>
<p>“No. I don’t intend to come after you. This is just me ‘defining the relationship’, so to speak,” he says, shifting so he can trace patterns on her hipbone. </p>
<p>“I like to allow myself nice things, every once in a while.” </p>
<p>“Nice things, huh?” He grins and flexes his chest and bicep, which only makes her snort – but he can see the responsive heat in her eyes. </p>
<p>“So what’s a nice girl like you doing working as a spy?” </p>
<p>He doesn’t really care about the answer; he’s just curious. This is real life, not <em>Pretty Woman. </em>She’s a spy, not a hooker, and she looks like the sort that’s more than capable of saving herself if she actually needs saving at all. </p>
<p>“Are you not going to ask me what I was doing at the party last night?” She seems to enjoy answering his questions with more questions, so he figures he might as well play the game a little longer too. </p>
<p>“Are you not going to deny that you are a spy?” </p>
<p>She shrugs, a calculatedly casual gesture. “Does it matter if I am? Does it matter that you know? The fact that you are talking to me about this instead of trying to report me or trying to take some other foolish action means that you are not a threat, to either my operation or my existence. You do not know enough to pose a danger, but I do not presume to insult your intelligence or make an enemy out of you, Tony Stark. In fact, you seem to be actively going out of your way to avoid asking certain questions, which only emphasizes your intelligence. You could be biding your time... but somehow, I doubt that you have anything so nefarious planned.” </p>
<p>He would have been more surprised if she <em>hadn’t </em>known who he was. As for the rest of it... </p>
<p>“I’m still an unknown quantity. I could wake up tomorrow and decide to come after you after all. Aren’t unknown quantities dangerous in your line of work? Collateral, as you call it?” </p>
<p>She snorts out a half-laugh. “People who <em>might </em>pose a threat to me don’t ever even know I exist. People who <em>really </em>pose a threat to me are dead soon after meeting me. They do not last a whole night alive. The fact that I revealed myself to you, at length and at close quarters... “ she trails off, expecting him to fill in the blanks. </p>
<p>“You’ve decided I’m not a threat. You decided it before you agreed to dance with me.” </p>
<p>“There is a difference between well-founded fear and paranoia. I don’t particularly subscribe to the latter. Besides, I think we could be useful to each other.” </p>
<p>“Is that why you slept with me? You don’t look like the type to be swayed by my charm and my name. So is it because you want something from me? A bonus asset on top of whatever your original mission was?” His easy posture belies the way awareness is thrumming through his every nerve. </p>
<p>She hums. “You could be useful, I admit. But I slept with you because you are pretty, because your reputation in the bed precedes you, and because sometimes, I enjoy the embrace of something other than pain and fear and death.” Tony actually sort of appreciates the uncomfortable honesty of that statement. “But I am talking to you now because you are an intelligent man. Far more intelligent than they say you are.” He really didn’t want to know who <em> they </em>were. “You weren’t a target, incidental or otherwise. I completed my mission before I ever came upstairs with you. Let’s just say that you... intrigued me, then and now. As I said, you were – are – an indulgence. </p>
<p>“Fair enough. But why not kill me anyway, even if you’re fairly certain I’m not a threat to you? I mean, isn’t that how this works? You confirm everything I think I know about you, because you’ve already decided I’m a liability and are about to slit my throat anyway? Not being your target doesn’t mean I’m not a liability.” Tony truly has no idea why he's pushing this so hard; if she kills him anyway because he manages to irritate her into it, he'll have only himself to blame.</p>
<p>“I would not slit your throat,” she says mildly, completely unbothered by his disbelief. “Knives are very messy. A lot of blood for the cleaning service to find.” </p>
<p>He gives her the flattest look he can possibly manage.  </p>
<p>“I trust you,” she says at last, low and deep in her throat. “I trust you when you say you don’t wish to cause any complications for me. And you have to trust me when I say that you were not my target, and that I do not want anything from you, and that I will not pursue you after this or come back with any demands.”  </p>
<p>He thinks that given his skill at hacking, and with her spy skills at work, if he did try to find her, they would end up playing the most entertainingly dangerous game of hide-and-seek ever. </p>
<p>“I did not trust you when I decided to dance with you, or to accompany you up to your room, but I had a good feeling about you. And now, that feeling has only grown stronger, and we will trust each other because we must, not because we want to, because after this point, it is either trust or death, and I find myself wanting to walk down the first path” she finishes, staring at him utterly seriously. </p>
<p>She seems to like him, for some reason, but Tony still makes another mental note to never piss her off. He has no doubts whatsoever that she will do whatever she needs to if push comes to shove.</p>
<p>"Shit. Hell of a risk to take. Not that I don’t appreciate it, Red.” Instinctively, Tony knows that this woman does not give most other people in her crosshairs the kind of options he’s been offered, and he is loathe to look a gift horse in the mouth. Still, he wonders, for a foolish moment, whether this makes him special, or just a special kind of sucker.  </p>
<p>She gives him a look he can’t decipher. “You should be careful,” is all she says. </p>
<p>“What? Why” He’s thrown by the sudden change in subject – he can tell they’re no longer talking about the agreement of trust they’ve just come to. </p>
<p>She eyes him speculatively for long moments, before she swings her legs off the bed. He lingers on the way the muscles of her long, lean back shift and stretch as she crosses the room to where her dress lies crumpled half-over an armchair. When she bends over to fiddle with the dress, he glues his eyes to her very plump bubble butt, knowing that she is aware of his gaze, knowing that she is purposely putting on a show for him. A woman so confident and aware of herself makes all the blood in his brain rush south... right up until he gets a good look at what she is holding in her left hand when she turns around. </p>
<p>A gun.  </p>
<p>The safety is still on, and her grip around it is lax, so he’s not worried that she’s gone back on her word not to kill him. A tiny part of his hindbrain is screaming at the absurdity of him placing his trust in the word of a spy and assassin, but the screaming is easy to ignore because the majority of his lizard-brain is fixated on the fact that a very hot young woman is standing before him, naked with nothing but a piece of serious machinery in her hands.  </p>
<p>But once he silences all parts of his hindbrain, he immediately notices that it’s not just any gun that she’s holding. </p>
<p>It’s one of his. </p>
<p>It’s a Stark-17. He had figured out that the Glock-17 was good for the most part, but a little unwieldy occasionally. He’d been half-drunk, but he’d figured he could improve the weight distribution, not to mention the recoil system and the targeting precision. He’d even ended up modifying the magazine to hold a few more rounds without drastically altering the balance of the gun. All-in-all, it had been hailed by various forms of law enforcement as a ‘seriously cool’ upgrade. </p>
<p>It makes him sick to see it now, in the hands of this woman, because –  </p>
<p>“Any chance you’re an American spy?” he finally asks weakly. </p>
<p>There is no answer, and he hadn’t expected one. The woman only shifts to stand a little closer to the bed, her blood-red fingernails gleaming wickedly on the matte black of the weapon. </p>
<p>The sight is unexpectedly hot, but Tony’s brain is spinning so fast at the moment that he completely bypasses any visceral reaction he might otherwise have had. </p>
<p>(In the back of his mind, though, Tony thinks he might have to explore gunplay in bed at a later date.) </p>
<p>“How do you have it?” </p>
<p>“Many such weapons are circulating all over Eastern Europe. There are rumors of a particularly large stockpile in a small country called Sokovia...”  </p>
<p>“Why are you telling me this?” The words fall numbly from his lips. </p>
<p>“I see the look on your face. And I am not unaware of current events in America. You are Tony Stark, weapons manufacturer, yes? Except, I thought Stark Industries only sold to American military. Not to Europe.” </p>
<p>“Is it real?” He demands suddenly, hoping against hope that she will tell him his eyes are just deceiving him. But he can still see the gun; it is definitely real, it is definitely one of his. It’s not one of the many fakes and counterfeits that saturate the market the world over. He knows his weapons better than anyone, after all the time he's spent, days and weeks and months of poring over blueprints and molds and prototypes.  </p>
<p>“You know it is,” she says, her voice softer than he would have expected. It makes him want to snarl and rage and howl and tell her to <em>get the fuck out and away from him, </em>because he couldn’t stand being caught flat-footed and unaware like this; it made him flash right back to when he was a lost boy at boarding school pretending to be the king when he really had nothing.  </p>
<p>But all he asks, again, is “Why tell me?” </p>
<p>Her brow furrows in confusion, and in any other circumstance, Tony would feel both thrilled that he had managed to confuse a talented spy, and honored that she was openly letting him see her reactions and expressions like this. </p>
<p>“Why – “ he has to stop to clear his suddenly croaky throat. “Why tell me, what good does it do you? It’s – you’re right, SI doesn’t sell in Europe. At least... “ he shakes his head. “We don’t. But clearly having it is helping you. You’re getting good use out of it, even if that’s at my expense. There’s no better weaponry in the world, and that’s not just my massive ego talking. So why tell me?” </p>
<p>She shrugs lightly. “This is the best I have ever had, it is true, but I will make do. I always do. But this... is bigger than one person, than one gun. And, I am not quite sure why, but you have managed to surprise me, Tony Stark, and I find myself... liking it. It has been a long time since I have been surprised. You gave me something, last night. And just now. Last night, you gave me a chance to just <em>be, </em>for a little while, and this morning, you have allowed me the luxury of honesty. I owed you a debt.” Tony watches with some lingering numbness as frustration, confusion, and fear play out across her face, and he watches as she locks those emotions away in a box, likely to be analyzed in private, if ever. </p>
<p>“I owed you a debt,” she says, her voice softening impossibly further, “but consider this both a repayment and a gift. However you will have it, I hope that you make good use of the information.”  </p>
<p>Oh, yes, he certainly would. She had definitely given him a gift – she'd given him <em>purpose; </em>something to live for beyond his next high. Somehow, Stark Industries was selling weapons in Europe. Either it was illegal, or Tony had signed some piece of paper while conscious but blacked out of his own mind that had allowed for this breach of contract with the US military – because Tony was certain that they hadn’t voided their contracts with the Department of Defense, and <em>t</em><em>hose </em>contracts had iron-clad noncompete clauses. Tony didn’t know which option he preferred, but either way, this was his fault – it was his name all over the company.  </p>
<p>He had a goal now, something to care about, something to occupy his interest and his intelligence and his focus and his long nights and longer days. He’d long since stopped caring about the endless parties and models and nightclubs; he only participated in that life for want of anything better to do and for the sake of his carefully-curated reputation. And he’d never really cared about building weapons; he’d only stuck with it because it was his what everyone wanted and expected and needed of him, and because some very broken part of him was still trying to please his dead father. He’d gradually turned more and more apathetic towards his own projects, the ones that revolved around green energy or medical innovation, especially since he’d been steered off the path of such advancement by Obie at every turn. Obie had called his interests ‘cute hobbies’, but ultimately a waste of time. At some point, he'd started to believe in those words. But now, he had something that wasn’t a waste of time: to figure out exactly what the fuck was happening in his own house. The last time he’d felt this kind of fire blazing through him, he’d just finished coding JARVIS. JARVIS was all grown up now, and it was time for a new project, and for that, he had this woman to thank. This woman. </p>
<p>“You know, I never got your name.” He goes for nonchalance, but he’s not sure it comes across with the way his shoulders are still pulled tight.  </p>
<p>“I didn’t give you one,” she murmurs, slowly laying the gun down on top of the dresser and slinking across the room and back into bed.  </p>
<p>“Well, I’d like to know what to call you when you make me come again.” </p>
<p>She shifts to nose at the hollow of his throat. “So confident there will be a round two, huh?” </p>
<p>He wraps an arm around her, adjusting so that he can press a thigh in between her legs. “You don’t seem to be in a hurry to take off.” </p>
<p>A wistful look crosses her face before she lets it melt off with a practiced ease. “I don’t have to leave until late afternoon,” is what she says. </p>
<p>He hears <em>I don’t </em>want <em>to leave, not until I absolutely have no choice, </em>but he thinks he’s probably just projecting his own desires, so he just pulls her closer. </p>
<p>“Plenty of time for room service and a shower, then.”  </p>
<p>“Plenty,” she agrees, and presses even closer to kiss him deeply, her teeth digging slightly into his bottom lip. Her lips feel chapped, now that they are no longer covered by the silky red lipstick she had worn last night, and they somehow look even plumper when not shaded in red. He can feel her patting impatiently at his leg, urging him to give her more friction where it counted. </p>
<p>Just as he’s finding a rhythm, feeling her wetness along his thigh as she grinds herself down on him, she pulls back just a fraction. He thinks she’s going for a kiss, so he leans in to meet her lips halfway, but she surprises him again by just brushing her open mouth on his and whispering “Natasha.” </p>
<p><em> Natasha. </em>It’s her name; he knows that much without having to ask her for clarification. At least it’s the name she’s choosing to give him; he doesn’t know if it’s actually her real name, but even if it (likely) isn’t her real name, it’s still a <em>gift </em>she’s choosing to give him, considering that she didn’t have to give him any form of address at all. And he wouldn’t have pushed – this, for as long as it lasts (until afternoon, he reminds himself), is built entirely on not pushing and on tiptoeing along a very invisible but established line.  </p>
<p>Natasha. </p>
<p>Tony doesn’t remember exactly why he’d decided to attend last night’s particular charity event in the first place, but he’s very, <em>very </em>glad he did – and not just because Natasha is now nudging his hands out of the way and sliding down his body. As she folds his cock into her warm mouth, however, all the other reasons he’s grateful for this turn of events fly right out of his head. </p>
<p>He has a new purpose in life, but that can wait until tomorrow, or until late evening at the very least. Right now, he’d like to allow himself some nice things too. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I’ll update this story as often as my muses allow. </p><p>I love hearing what you all think!</p><p>Stay safe, everyone.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. discoveries we can’t ignore</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>the aftermath of one significant meeting might be the prelude to another</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She tucks her red hair back under a scarf and dons oversized sunglasses. She is waved through security by a man who is one of <em>theirs: </em>a man who has been instructed to allow her through without a second thought, a man who is more interested in checking out the assets she exposes than the ones she keeps concealed.  </p><p>As she silently stalks up the ramp of the plane in her heels and shows her passport to the air hostess, she wonders, not for the first time, what it would feel like to fly under her own name. </p><p>She lets the thought carry her through a full day and a stopover before she finally lets it go as the plane touches down in a tiny, separate hangar. It is too dangerous a thought to hold onto where she is going. The guards usher her into the building as soon as she enters the compound she calls home, where she is stripped immediately of her bag, her shoes, and her clothes. In return, she is handed back her standard uniform of shorts and a thin tank top, and duly informed that she must report to Madame in less than three minutes. She takes one of those minutes to wrap her hair up in the standard plaits, already missing the soft, loose curls she had chosen to wear during her mission. </p><p>Standing ramrod straight in the very center of the bare office, she rattles off the details of her mission by rote, unseeing and unfeeling. These debriefs are just another test, she knows. Madame is listening to her, but more importantly, she is watching Natasha for any flicker of emotion. The mission does not end when they cross the building’s threshold, and the girls that relive the horrors they experience and inflict instead of retelling them with perfect detachment are deemed too weak to succeed. The only consequence for that kind of failure is termination. Good thing Natasha is one of the unbreakable ones, as Madame constantly reminds her. Once she falls silent, she is informed that she has mostly performed to Madame’s satisfaction, but that she took too much time. She was not efficient enough and she wasted more time than strictly necessary on the mission, and she is promptly punished for it with a brutal sparring session that ends with Tatia’s pulse flickering out underneath Natasha’s strong hold. </p><p>As she feels the blood drip from beneath her fingernails, Natasha knows she will never tell them the true reason she had spent extra time in America, after the mission was done with. She always set up things so her mission outcome would not be discovered for at least a day after the fact – it was a sensible precaution that even her handlers approved of, but she had pushed that little leeway to its very limit, this time, and she was being punished for it. As she feels the bruises start to set into her ribs where Tatia had gotten her good a couple of times, Natasha thinks that the extra time spent had been entirely worth it, that she would not have done anything differently, not even to spare herself this. <em>Tony </em>had been entirely worth it, even if Tatia was the one that had paid the price for that decision. An acceptable casualty. If not today, then tomorrow – death would come for all the girls in the room with her. But never meeting Tony was <em>unthinkable, </em>now that she actually had. She had been given a gift she hadn‘t even known she wanted.  </p><p>Tony would not see it this way, she can say without a doubt. Despite how little she truly knows him, Natasha knows that Tony would be horrified to know that she would trade lives like this – Tatia's life for one night of her own selfish happiness. Tatia’s life for Tony’s. The equation would not balance out in Tony’s mind, and Natasha can acknowledge the point – it had been an unfair choice, and she had made it unfairly. Of course it does not balance and make any kind of reasonable sense. It is, she thinks, a bit like offering someone the railway problem. Do you save the baby or the group of adults? Do you save your own family, or do you save a group of one hundred strangers? Madame had taught them to view the scenarios as logic problems, to run the cold numbers and to weigh the practical risks and benefits of any decision. Natasha had always thought the railway problem was about nothing more than emotionally-informed priorities. </p><p>She does not love Tony, of course – she only met him 48 hours ago. She does not even know if she is capable of love. She was taught that love is for children, that love is nothing more than either weapon or weakness. She is also fairly sure Tony does not love her. He seemed too intelligent for it, and she would be disappointed if he was the stupid sort to love at first sight, especially knowing what she was. They had shared nothing more than sex, as far as she was concerned – but it had also turned out to be a lot more than just sex. </p><p><em> He had made her feel. </em>That was the real reason she had spared him and still wanted to get to know him. He had intrigued her, yes, but he was not the first, nor would he be the last. Many a man or mark had intrigued her, and if they weren’t a mark, she would have contented herself with a dance and a quick roll in the bed. But the morning after showed her that he was not ordinary, full of the usual sort of intrigue that normally attracted her for just a moment or two. He had utterly surprised her when he correctly deduced what she was, and then <em>did not judge her. </em>The very idea that someone could be so accepting of her presence, her existence, without trying to use it or turn it against her had rocked her to her core. He had continued to speak to her like what she did, her livelihood, her reason for existence, did not matter as much as other things. He had treated her like neither her looks nor her profession were the most interesting parts of her. And then, on top of his unassuming acceptance, he had showed himself to be kind and considerate, as both a lover and a conversationalist. Under other circumstances, she would have thought his kindness and acceptance naïve. She would have thought <em>him </em>naïve, to allow an assassin to stay in his bed without even a token fuss, with the trust that she would not kill him. </p><p>But no, she suspects that his acceptance of her presence was the furthest thing from naïve. He had accepted the possibility of his own death, had even pushed for it, but had also been quietly confident that she would not pull the trigger. It had felt... annoyingly refreshing, in that moment, that someone else could decipher her so well and so accurately. For his part, he seemed to be a bag of contradictions that she wanted to make sense of more than she had wanted to do anything in a long time. She’d always liked puzzles, but unlike the ones she had enjoyed as a child, with their edges that lined up neatly, he needed more than thirty seconds to solve.  </p><p>But he was not just a challenge either, that she would solve and then discard.  </p><p>He was not just another man in her bed, just another memory. </p><p>She had wanted him to keep talking when he stopped. She had wanted him to direct more of his casual kindness towards her. She had wanted to keep his singular attention focused on<em> her, </em>not on a fake persona and not on anyone else, but her. She had wanted to continue to be <em>seen</em>, badly enough that she had given him a version of her real name, enough that she had trusted when he said he would not track her down, enough that she had given him a genuine gift without strings attached.  </p><p>Suddenly feeling so many different things feels odd, overwhelming. For the first time since her earliest days of basic training, she is having to actively compartmentalize so that she can continue doing what is demanded of her. </p><p>They had long since stripped her of all emotion and feeling. Even the unwavering loyalty they inspired was the work of fear, routine, and survival instinct, instead of any real passion – they knew that that passion could make loyalties turn on a dime. Passion bred a kind of danger and unpredictability they could not harness. Instead, she had been built as a machine, ruthless and practical and committed. Machines did not feel. Machines did not waver. Machines had no priorities other than the one they had been assigned. Machines did not want things, did not wish for things, did not like things or hate things or form any personal attachments. Nothing mattered to the machine besides the mission and personal survival. In that order. </p><p>And Tony had come along and unwittingly shaken apart her foundations, obliterated the core principles of her very existence with nothing more than a handful of softly-spoken words and perceptive gestures.  </p><p>And she had encouraged it. She had wanted more of it, lying there, letting him trace out equations and shapes on her hip. She wants more of it now. </p><p>Either she had failed, gone wrong somewhere, or the ones that made her had failed. It didn’t really matter which was true; it all led to the same result. Feeling was failure, and failure meant death. </p><p>If, under other circumstances, Tony might have been naïve, then Natasha would call herself foolish. But she is also the best. She is too good to let them find out about her foolishness. She will not risk meeting with Tony again, not even if her business takes her near him. She cannot repeat the time she spent with him, but she will not regret it either. She will not forget it. She will hold it close, and indulge her foolish failures privately. </p><p>She falls asleep that night to dreams of expressive brown eyes. </p><p>***</p><p>More than a year passes before Tony hears about her again. </p><p>In the beginning, he searches for her, knowing the entire time that he’s being utterly ridiculous. Still, he can’t help peering into every face he passes on the street, can’t help analyzing the gait of every woman he comes across, comparing it to Natasha’s sensual, rolling one. He shows up at more charity functions and galas in the following months than he has at any other point in his life – he shows up often enough that Obie becomes obviously suspicious. It’s hilarious. He even behaves himself, mostly; he schmoozes his way through the crowd, but he barely drinks and he doesn’t dance with anyone. He just stands back and watches everyone, looking for green eyes, for red hair. He leers and looks pretty women up and down as they preen, while he is really just scanning them for hidden weapons, even though he doesn’t know the first thing about where to hide a weapon in dresses that tight and revealing.   </p><p>He remembers Natasha’s lips, full and plush, every time he kisses, fucks, and then slips away from his flavor of the night, week, month. </p><p>He knows he’s being dumb. Worse, he’s being unbearably cliché. He‘s romanticizing his entire encounter with Natasha; no matter what she had said, it had just been another night of extremely good sex that he’d been lucky to escape alive. She is also a skilled spy; she’s clearly had <em>years </em>to learn how to stay under the radar, so what makes him think he’s just going to magically run into her? He doesn’t even know what kind of kickass spy gear she has to alter her appearance or her speech patterns or her walk. Their weirdly intense connection aside, Tony didn’t even know how much of the woman he’d spent his time with had been real, and how much had been just a cover. There had been parts of her that had felt more honest than others, but only a shitty spy would have put themselves out there completely unfiltered, and Tony knew that whatever else Natasha was, she wasn’t a shitty spy. </p><p>He wonders, for a moment, whether she’s watching him from a distance, but then he always snorts at that thought and reminds his ego to <em>settle the fuck down. </em> </p><p>As the weeks, then months pass on, he wonders if he’ll ever see her again. </p><p>He wonders if she’s okay. </p><p>At one point, he wonders if she’s still alive. It’s dangerous, he knows, what she does and who she is.</p><p>He wonders if that night had meant as much to her as it had to him. </p><p>Hell, he wonders why that night meant so much to him at all. </p><p>He wonders who she is beyond danger personified – he wonders what organization she works for, what kinds of missions she takes, why she’s a spy.</p><p>One thing he never wonders about is keeping his promise to not look into her.  </p><p>He distracts himself with his new project. Natasha had given him the gift of knowledge, and he isn’t just going to piss it away. He doesn’t know what the fuck is going on yet, so he doesn’t know who to trust. He doesn’t know if it’s just a mistake, an accident that his weapons ended up where they weren’t supposed to be. He doesn’t know if he’s the one to blame directly, if he signed something he shouldn’t have – he's done it before, in the early days, when he’d still been young and grieving and had just been handed a responsibility he was in no way ready for. Back then, he’d signed on the dotted line wherever Uncle Obie had told him to, trusting that his godfather would take care of all the details. He’d been too young and too raw and too grieving and too drunk on drugs and women and whatever else to care about anything beyond just physically putting his pen to the paper in front of him. </p><p>Worse than that is the possibility that it’s entirely intentional that his weapons are ending up in foreign, hostile territories, and that it’s <em>not </em>because of a piece of paper he signed. He doesn’t want to contemplate the possibility, but even though Tony has been oblivious and clearly very deep in denial of late, he’s not stupidly naïve. He’s been in this world long enough <em>(his whole life) </em>to know that people saw dollar signs where they should see human lives, and that anyone could be dealing under the table. He’d like to think it wasn’t the case, but  <em> anyone  </em> was capable of double-dipping – selling both the US, to her military and various law enforcement agencies, and also to her enemy countries – under the right circumstances. For some, it wouldn’t even require certain circumstances to go down that road; more sales meant more profit, and profit was king. More sales also meant more weapons out there in the world, which just led to more war, which led to more sales, which led to more profit. Rinse, repeat. It made Tony sick to think, but it wasn’t unbelievable that someone was diverting stock down not-so-legal avenues. Tony would put money on it being someone in shipping; it was the easiest point of access that he could think of, but he’d be the first to admit that he hadn’t been very hands-on with the business in a  <em> very  </em>long time. It wouldn’t have taken much to slip something beneath his notice. </p><p>The more he goes through the paperwork with a painstaking level of scrutiny, the more Tony thinks that this isn’t an accident or a mistake. </p><p>That’s why he’s decided not to trust anybody with the information he’s digging up – not yet. He doesn’t know enough yet, he doesn’t have all the information he needs to make any decisions. He is a scientist at heart, first and foremost; he knows better than to try anything without knowing all the variables in play. He doesn’t know how many people are involved, how many departments are compromised. He doesn’t know how long any of it has been going on. Logically, it would make sense to go straight to the top, but that would mean assuming that the people with power are honorable. Tony knows it’s awful of him to assume that the people with power aren’t on the up-and-up, because he himself has a lot of power and he hadn’t exactly done right by the business lately, so suspecting others made him a hypocrite at best – but that was exactly the point. If it was so easy for <em>him </em>to turn a blind eye, what was to say that the Board couldn’t be doing the same for their own reasons? After all, the Board of Directors was made up of rich white guys as old as Methuselah who seemed to exist solely to pad their bank accounts and didn’t care how it happened – if their continual requests for bigger and badder weapons were any indication. </p><p>The trouble was that the Board didn’t generally care about the collateral damage that accompanied the bigger and badder weapons. Truth was that Tony hadn’t much thought about it until now either, but now that he <em>was </em>thinking about it, he could see how that kind of thinking was the exact opposite of honorable or trustworthy. It meant that going to the Board and asking them to run a company-wide audit seemed out of the question. At best, they would laugh and ignore him. At worst, they would try to push him out entirely if they saw him trying to change the status quo they’d grown very comfortable with. That was why he had to keep his investigation under wraps for the moment. </p><p>The problem is that Tony knows he can’t do this alone forever – there would come a time when he would need help if he actually wanted to change things. But at the moment, he doesn’t trust his own judgement enough to know who else he can trust enough to bring into this. Anyone and everyone had their own biases and blind spots. Anyone and everyone could be compromised. He tells himself that he’s not being paranoid; he’s just being justifiably cautious. </p><p>He stubbornly ignores the voice in his head asking him why he doesn’t just go to Obie with this newfound information – the truth is, Obie had somehow missed this, too. The best-case scenario is that Obie’s judgement is compromised as well. The worse-case scenario is the Obie is one of the bad ones. It sucked, but family couldn’t always be trusted – Tony has an abusive history with Howard to thank for that particular piece of insight. Tony could dimly recall a few instances in his childhood where he’d heard Obie muttering to Howard about skipping the extensive safety checks just so they could get ahead on the market. Tony could remember the barely-stifled greed in Obie’s eyes that often accompanied statements like that. </p><p>But Tony knows someone whose judgement could never be compromised, not by greed or much else, no matter what. Quietly, Tony has JARVIS reroute some of his subroutines to the task of tracking the shipping logs and monitoring the expense reports. Tony also has JARVIS flag any inconsistencies and discrepancies he finds, which he then has J save to a super-secret file on the private server without alerting anyone else. Once JARVIS flags the inconsistencies, Tony follows up on the flags by poking around other reports and asking a few discreet questions. It was a slow-going system, but it was going. Tony just wishes it would go faster, or that patience was one of his stronger suits. </p><p>Tony sighs, frowning down at his empty coffee cup. His eyes cut to the lab’s coffee maker – which is empty too, of course, because this day was a shitty pile of crap that had started out with three mind-numbing meetings, continued with a solid afternoon of combing through shipping logs, and had just ended on a serious lack of coffee in his private lab. The day was far from over, but Tony was more than done with it. For the barest hint of a second, Tony longs for the days when he spent all his time drunk and didn’t care to attend any of the meetings in the first place.  </p><p>But that was exactly the kind of thinking that had gotten him to where he was standing now. He sighs and looks over at the coffee machine again – yep, still empty. </p><p>“Betrayal, J,” he mutters, heaving himself to his feet. </p><p>“Sir, it might be more prudent to just call it a day than to go looking for more coffee. Might I suggest you make your way home and attempt to get some rest. I will continue running the rest of the numbers.” </p><p>“Rest? Come on, J, you know there’s no time for that, Daddy’s got things to do!” </p><p><em> “Sir.” </em> </p><p>“No, seriously – “ Tony shuts his mouth so hard his teeth click. Honestly, why <em>is </em>he arguing the point so hard? He’s got a blinding migraine that he’d apparently managed to push off the entire afternoon, but is now rapidly making itself known against the edges of his skull. J really could continue running the numbers in his absence, and he would wake him if he found anything. He’d already dealt with all the pending company stuff for the day. His private projects could wait; he honestly didn’t think his headache would actually let him work out any of the math at this point. He might as well head home for his migraine meds, his own couch, and, well, there was a top-of-the-line coffee maker with expensive dark roast beans also waiting for him at home.  </p><p>Decision made, he enters the elevator and instructs J to take him straight to his private parking level, choosing to ignore the whir from JARVIS’ servers that sounds suspiciously like a sigh of relief. He closes his eyes and leans back against the wall of the elevator car... </p><p>...and is promptly jolted out of his hazy brain when the elevator stops. It <em>stops.  </em> </p><p>“What the fuck, J?” Tony vigorously scrubs his hand over his face. </p><p>“Apologies, sir, you entered the common elevator instead of your private one. This elevator is designed to stop for all Stark Industries employees, per your own instructions.” </p><p>“What.” Tony’s tone, like his mind, is blank and flat. </p><p>“Would you like to exit the elevator and proceed to your private one? Or would you like me to continue this elevator to the top without opening the doors? </p><p>“Um. Yes – I – yeah. Just open the doors, J. No sense in inconveniencing everyone else. I’ll get off and use the other one.” </p><p>“Very good, sir.” </p><p>The doors open to reveal... an extremely attractive woman. <em>Huh. </em> </p><p>“On second thought, J, let’s just go wherever she needs to go,” Tony murmurs quietly enough that the woman can’t hear him but that Tony knows JARVIS’ sensors will pick up on.</p><p>“Please do not necessitate another visit to HR, sir.” </p><p>“Yeah, yeah.” Tony shifts his position so he can get a better look at the woman who has just pressed the button for the lobby. </p><p>Her strawberry blonde hair is pulled up in a ponytail, but bits and pieces are escaping the tie, as if she’s spent too much time running her fingers through it in frustration. Her blazer is slightly askew, and there are spots of color high on her cheeks while her blue eyes are strikingly dark with anger. Her fingers are clenched tight around the strap of her satchel-purse. She hasn’t noticed him, yet – she's been staring at the ground and taking deep breaths, apparently trying to calm herself or whatever, but he’s looking right at her, so he sees when she finally looks up and clocks exactly who she’s in the elevator with.  </p><p>She freezes, but only for a second. </p><p>“Mr. Stark.” Her tone carries a note of surprise, but leans overwhelmingly towards disinterested politeness. It’s – refreshing, actually; most women would have plastered themselves to his side by now and would’ve been cooing and purring into his ear. Or, seeing as they would’ve been working for him, they would’ve started listing off their resume, brownnosing in hopes that he would give them a promotion on the spot. Some would have just frozen in fear and wouldn’t have said anything – they wouldn’t even have offered up their name.  </p><p>“Ms.... “ </p><p>“Potts,” she answers, coolly. “Virginia Potts, in accounting.” </p><p>“Nice to meet you, Ms. Potts.” He shifts to offer her a handshake, pleased when she just gives him a certain <em>look </em>before sliding her hand into his with a firm grip. Sure, he’d stayed because she was pretty, but... this was turning out to be something else. </p><p>“You don’t usually take the elevator,” she suddenly says, squinting at him.  </p><p>He just raises an eyebrow at her. “I hope you’re not saying you seriously think I take the <em>stairs </em>all the time.”  </p><p>She flushes prettily. It’s sure something to see her lose her composure, even for a minute. “No, I – “ She huffs. “I mean I’ve never actually seen you on the elevator. Ever. I doubt any other employee has either.” </p><p>He’s silent another moment, just studying her. “There’s a private elevator,” he finally says. “i got on this one from the lab levels by accident – I'm sleep deprived and building up to a truly awesome migraine. I was headed home, wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking.” <em>And my AI is a traitor that let me get on the wrong elevator in the first place, </em>he thinks but doesn’t say. </p><p>“Ah. So the lobby is...” </p><p>“The lobby’s fine. I’ll switch elevators in the lobby and head to my private parking level from there.” </p><p>Potts doesn’t say anything in response, nor does she relax her posture. </p><p>“So...” Not quite sure how to do this small talk thing people were always going on about, Tony shrugs uncomfortably. “How was your day?” he tries, aware that it comes out sounding lame. </p><p>She huffs out a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m pretty sure I got fired, actually. I mean – I haven’t gotten a pink slip yet, or anything, but it’ll be on its way soon enough, I’m sure.” She averts her eyes.  </p><p>His eyebrow creeps up towards his hairline again. “Can I ask why you might have gotten fired?” </p><p>She suddenly fixes him with a weirdly intense laser-like stare. “I noticed a discrepancy in some numbers in a fiscal report. It might just be a copying error, it might be nothing. But when I took it to my department head, he got... squirrely. Shut me down right away, refused to talk about it further. Threatened me – “ </p><p>“Wait. Wait wait wait. <em>Threatened </em>you?” Tony splutters.  </p><p>“Yes,” she answers calmly, evenly, her frazzled appearance giving lie to her tone. “Said if I pursued the matter any further, I would be out of here right now and I could forget about finding any finance job ever again.” </p><p>“Accounting, you said, right?” Tony asks, already tapping away at his phone. </p><p>Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see hers narrow. “Yes...”  </p><p>Huh. Quickly pulling up the records for a ‘Ms. Potts’, Tony tracks through her employment record to find her direct supervisor. A Mr. Roberts pops up on the screen. Tony flags the profile and sends it to JARVIS to look over. Someone getting squirrely about a discrepancy in numbers? Could be nothing. Could be that Mr. Roberts was just stressed and having a bad day. Could be that he was a misogynistic ass who hated a woman that was his subordinate bringing his attention to a mistake that he was supposed to have caught. …Or it could be that he was involved with <em>other </em>discrepancies within Stark Industries. Either way, doing a deep, JARVIS-approved background check on the guy at this point was just a good idea.  </p><p>“Okay,” he says, looking up and sliding his phone away. “I’ll look into your boss.” He holds out his hand expectantly, watching her stare at it for long moments. </p><p>“The reports,” he finally clarifies. “Show me the reports.” </p><p>Mouth falling open a little, she slides her hand into her bag and slowly resurfaces with two red manila folders.  </p><p>“I should warn you, Mr. Stark, that I technically might also be getting fired because when Mr. Roberts threatened me <em>and </em>made a sexist comment about pretty bimbos in the same sentence – “ </p><p>Okay, so he <em>was </em>a sexist pig. Good to know. He’d have to talk with legal to see if it was a fireable offense, given his own well-known exploits. Though one didn’t necessarily relate to the other – what the tabloids printed was irrelevant to the office, and all the HR complaints against him were from gold diggers who’d enthusiastically consented to a night with him, and then been disappointed when it hadn’t automatically resulted in a promotion or raise. Not that Tony could blame HR for being pissed with him for inviting such complaints; he should’ve known better than to muddy the waters of the corporate ladder. Still, at least Tony could say he respected women and their capabilities, despite the fact that he consensually slept with a lot of them. Him being a playboy didn’t excuse workplace misogyny, so he <em>should </em>be able to put Roberts on probation at the very least. </p><p>“ – I threatened to pepper spray him if his sexist ass came anywhere near me.” </p><p>Tony blinked. “You carry pepper spray?” That earned him a very dry look. </p><p>“It’s California in the 2000s, Mr. Stark. A lot of women do.” </p><p>“...Okay. Well, you were well within your rights to defend yourself, and you didn’t actually use it – “ He pauses, before tentatively asking “...did you?” </p><p>“Not this time.”</p><p><em>This time? </em>Tony resolutely ignored the very interesting images that were suddenly popping into his head.</p><p>“Yeah, okay. I can work with that.”  </p><p>“You seriously want to look over the reports?” It’s obvious that she is suspicious, probably having heard many different, unflattering things about him that don’t line up with the way he’s acting now. </p><p>“Yes,” he nods, holding his hand out for the files once again. Truth be told, he’s not exactly comfortable accepting anything directly from a stranger – most of the time, he has people lay down whatever they want to give him on a nearby flat surface, or he has them hand it to Obie. He’ll accept things directly from Obie’s hand. But there’s no flat surface except the floor conveniently nearby here, so he pushes past his own discomfort to take the files. He can’t afford to turn a blind eye to <em>any </em>discrepancies in the company right now; he can’t afford to let this opportunity pass him by because of his own neuroses. </p><p>He sees a look of mild disappointment and displeasure on her face as she hands them over, and he turns the expression over in his mind.</p><p>She looks like someone who hates not seeing something through to its very end, which is the only reason for what he does next, he tells himself. </p><p>(Not because he apparently has a weakness for redheads, and he’d like to get to know this one better.) </p><p>“Hey – would you like to have lunch with me in two days? It’s... Tuesday today, so Thursday? At around...” He quickly checks his mental schedule, grimacing when he realizes Thursday is R&amp;D inspection day. “...2:30?”</p><p>And she’s back to looking suspicious. “Why?” </p><p>“I have a feeling you’d like to know what the discrepancy in the numbers is about. I have a feeling you like to know what comes of it.” </p><p>She scoffs. “I doubt I have the security clearance to know such a thing. I’m just a random girl from accounting, just one of the rotating cast of nameless, faceless characters down there.” </p><p>Tony smiles indulgently. Her words had been bitter, frustrated, and resigned, but they’d been said challengingly. She had the sort of fire that was magnetic – he definitely wanted to know more about her. </p><p>Tony reaches out and touches one of her shoulders quickly with the edge of a manila folder before doing the same to the other shoulder. “There,” he says lightly, keeping his eyes on hers. “Consider yourself knighted. I hereby grant you temporary security clearance of the highest order.” Obie and HR would both skin him alive for this sort of thing, but Tony had a weirdly good feeling about this. </p><p>“...Why?” </p><p>He sighs, dropping the levity from his demeanor. “Honestly? I don’t know. You’ve had a rough go of it. You thought you’d been fired over this – which, I assure you, you won’t be. You deserve to see this through to the end. Truthfully, I don’t even know what I’ll find when I go over the files. If it’s seriously high-level shit, I’ll have you sign an NDA specific to this before filling you in, although technically speaking, your Stark Industries contract already contains a blanket-wide NDA. Fair?” </p><p>“Fair enough. I should warn you I’m not available.” The glare she directs at him could melt steel, and Tony has to fight a smile, knowing she’ll probably think he’s mocking her or something if he gives in to his amusement. The truth is that she just looks too cute when she’s trying so hard to be menacing.</p><p>But he can respect the sentiment behind her statement, and he raises both hands, palms facing front in a gesture of peace. “Okay. That’s fine. This really will just be a business lunch.”</p><p>She squints at him suspiciously some more, and when she finally nods, it’s with an air of great reluctance.</p><p>”Thursday, let’s say 2:30 in the lobby. You should send me an email if you’re running late.”</p><p>Tony finally lets the smile he’s been pushing back slip onto his face. He taps his watch so JARVIS will enter the meeting into his personal calendar and remind him the day of – he does not want this incredibly organized-looking woman to kill him because he forgot and she waited for him. </p><p>“Do you realize we’ve been stopped in the elevator at the lobby level for the last four minutes?”</p><p>“Oh.” He grimaces. “Yeah. That... that’s a thing. We weren’t done talking, so the elevator decided to stay closed off. Happens.” </p><p>“It happens?” Her look was so incredulous, it made Tony want to chuckle. He couldn’t tell her the truth though – that JARVIS was holding the doors closed to allow them privacy to finish up their sensitive conversation. JARVIS was wired into the entirety of Stark Industries, but it’s not like anyone except Tony actually <em>knew </em>that. Not even Obie knew.  </p><p>“Mmm. I look forward to seeing you on Thursday, Ms. Potts. I know you said I could email you, but have my card, just in case.” He presses it into her palm, ignoring how <em>good </em>the simple touch feels. </p><p>She frowns lightly. “Should I expect a call from HR?”</p><p>”No.” His answer is firm. “I’ll straighten that out and let you know what happens.”</p><p>”...Thank you,” she says unsurely.</p><p>“Great! See you Thursday, Pepper.” </p><p>“Pepper?” She asks, her eyes wide. </p><p>“Pepper,” he says cheerfully, shooing her out of the elevator and waving her off. “Nice meeting you, Pepper!” he yells, as the doors begin to close. </p><p><em> Nice doesn’t even begin to cover it, </em>he thinks, as he finally slides into late California traffic and begins his fifteen-minute journey home. He’d have to actively keep an eye out for redheads in the future if they kept surprising him like this.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. blast from the past</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>things are not looking good for our favorite boy genius</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>woo! It’s been a month... sorry. Real life has really kicked me lately, and my brain’s been screwy and I’ve had exactly zero motivation to work on this. </p><p>This chapter’s shorter than usual, but to compensate, I should be able to get the next chapter up by next Friday. </p><p>Note: We're in mid-2006 in this chapter</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>“Oh my god, Tony. Oh my god.” Pepper presses an incredulous hand to her mouth as she glances back and forth with big eyes between the file clutched in Tony’s hand and the darkening expression on his face.</p><p>Tony actually doesn’t even know how bad his face looks right then because this... this is so bad. It’s bad enough that his mind is a whited-out blank and he can hear his blood beating in his ears and he’s struggling to think of anything that isn’t an angry four-letter word.</p><p>“You didn’t know?” Pepper’s shaking voice punctuates the eerie stillness of his mind. Should he be this calm? Was this the appropriate reaction to finding out that his entire life over the last decade or so had been rooted in lies? Was there actually <em>any</em> appropriate reaction to the sheer scope of this betrayal?</p><p>“Tony.” Pepper’s voice, still quivering, now starts veering into a no-nonsense register that Tony has come to love about her, and it shakes him out of his own head again.</p><p>“Sorry, Pep,” he murmurs before he sits back and really takes a moment to just study her. Pepper had really been something else; a true force of nature in more ways than one. It had been a long few weeks since Pepper had first handed Tony the files with the discrepancies she’d noticed. When Tony had investigated each account separately, he’d noted that the discrepancies were all related to various employees skimming off the top, small amounts here and there that technically wouldn’t ever be noticed if it hadn’t been for Pepper’s eagle eye. Roberts hadn’t been one of the employees skimming – it turned out he really was just a misogynistic ass, and had been harboring a grudge against Pepper for a while because she wouldn’t fall for his ‘charms’. He’d been let off with a probation and a black mark on his record – it turned out that a misogynistic attitude wasn’t grounds enough to get fired, which Tony grudgingly admitted might be somewhat fair given that his own attitude could be interpreted as offensive.</p><p>The people skimming though – Tony had wanted them <em>gone</em>. Obie had told him he’d take care of it when he’d gone barging into the man’s office, and Obie had – the offending employees had been gone the next day, just like that. When Tony later asked how the skimming had gone on so long without being noticed, Obie had gently (patronizingly) said that sometimes it was better to turn the other cheek and allow useful people to get their own. <em>You have to look at the big picture, Tony</em>, Obie had said.</p><p>From where Tony was standing, the big picture looked dark as hell.</p><p>Tony had insisted however that it couldn’t be allowed to continue, and Obie had gotten a certain look in his eye before once again reassuring Tony <em>it won’t happen, my boy, you’re right, you’re right, don’t worry about it now, let’s go have a drink, hm?</em></p><p>A mollified Tony had gone and had that drink, and then another, and then another, with his godfather and uncle. He’d missed a meeting the next morning that Obie had told him it was okay to skip, <em>it’s okay, boy, you nurse that hangover, looks like you had one too many drinks, you can’t show up to the meeting like this but you can make the next one, it’s just old folks business and I’ll fill you in on it later.</em></p><p>When Tony had woken up properly hours later, he’d felt horrible for more than one reason.</p><p>That very evening, he’d promoted Pepper as his new PA and asked her to never let him skip another meeting again, told her that she was in charge of all aspects of his calendar from then on out. He’d very clearly stated that he never wanted to be so compromised again that he didn’t know what was going on with his own company because he let somebody else <em>handle </em>things.</p><p>She’d been delighted to accept her new role, but only after yelling at him for forty-five minutes about how she wasn’t a puppet he could yank about on a string and that he had to <em>ask</em> if she even wanted to be his PA before he just turned her world upside down like that. Tony doesn’t actually remember much of her ranting because in the end, she’d accepted the position, and she’d stayed in it ever since despite her frequently obvious exasperation with him.</p><p>A couple weeks after that, Tony had brought her into his secret project because JARVIS was sure she could be trusted, and there was only so far he was getting on his own. If anyone could help him parse through all the numbers, it would be Potts. She’d been horrified to find herself deep in the middle of corruption, but once she’d muddled through her ethical hang-ups about continuing to be employed at SI, she’d proven to be so much more valuable to the task than even Tony had anticipated.</p><p>She and JARVIS teamed up were the scariest thing on the planet. Period.</p><p>They kept digging – super carefully, so they wouldn’t end up burying themselves further in the quagmire of double-dealings and double-crosses this was turning out to be.</p><p>And now here they sat, with Obie’s signature on several suspicious documents, including an injunction to try and lock him out of his own company, citing his party-boy ways as the reason.</p><p>Tony knew the <em>real </em>reason though — he and Pepper must be getting close to something. Too close. The injunction was the work of a guilty man. Tony still didn’t know <em>what, </em>exactly, Obie, was guilty of, but he sure as hell was guilty of some pretty big things. Tony knew intimately what it looked like when a man had something to hide.</p><p>Tony didn’t know the real extent of it yet. He didn’t know just how complicit his godfather was. But that was the point — it sure as hell looked bad. It sure as hell looked like his <em>godfather </em>was knowingly complicit in Stark Industries’ under-the-table weapons dealing.</p><p>”We have to keep looking, Pep,” he mutters angrily. “He can’t — if he’s really doing this, if he’s involved in this, the man who was there a damn sight more often then my own father — <em>fuck!” </em>Tony wants to throw something really, really badly.</p><p>”Hey, hey,” Pepper reaches out and lays a soothing hand on his own, rubbing circles over his pebbled knuckles. “We’ll find out. We’ll stop this. We’ll see how deep this goes.”</p><p>Tony swipes his other hand over his eyes, weary. “Thanks, Pep,” he says, unbearably grateful for the treasure of a woman sitting across from him. “I just can’t — I can’t believe he’d actually be involved. It just... I know we have the papers, but it still... I can’t make sense of it,” he finishes on a whisper.</p><p>”You’re emotionally invested, of course it doesn’t make sense. That’s why you have me, and JARVIS — look, Tony. We’ll get this figured out, okay? Let’s get the facts first — <em>all </em>the facts. Then you’ll have all the time in the world to feel all your feelings.”</p><p>Tony could only nod, still clutching onto Pepper’s hand like it was a lifeline, trying his best to believe her.</p><p>“Don’t forget, you’re flying to Europe tomorrow for the conference; your plane leaves at 8 AM. Don’t be late Tony, please.”</p><p>”Isn’t it my plane?” Tony  quips back weakly. “Shouldn’t it leave when I say I’m ready to leave?”</p><p>Pepper just rolls her eyes fondly. “While you’re gone, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll try and find a loophole, try and buy you some more time before the lockout becomes permanent. I’ll do my best, I promise.”</p><p>Tony just nods, finishing off his coffee.</p><p>Two days later, he’s desperately wishing Pepper could make good on her promise to buy him more time.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>When Tony woke up, it was someplace dark, and it was only seconds later that he realized he was blindfolded. And that he was cuffed to the cot he was lying on. And he could feel a chill in the air, ghosting along his skin, and he could feel that his shirt had been pulled off.</p><p>And then, after slipping the blindfold up his forehead, he looked down and saw the hole in his chest, with wires trailing from it connecting to the car battery that had been placed next to him.</p><p>That was when he screamed — or tried to. The sound got lost in his chest cavity and came out sounding more like a breathless half-groan, half-wheeze.</p><p>“What — what the fuck — happened?” Tony wasn’t sure the mess of his chest was the reason his words came out sounding strangled too.</p><p>He wasn’t expecting a response to his question — as far as he could see, he was alone in his cell — but to his utter shock, he got some conversation for his troubles when he went to sit up, clutching at his chest — which, now that Tony was focusing, was starting to burn like hot knives were stabbing into it.</p><p>“Careful,” came a deep, dry voice. “They shot the doctor after he finished fixing you. I do not know anything about that device and cannot help if you rip it out of yourself.”</p><p>“Device?” Tony spluttered. “It’s a car battery — okay, no, you know what, just — who are you?” Tony finishes lamely, trying to focus on anything except the fragmented memories that were currently assaulting him.</p><p>He’d been on his way to the airport.</p><p>There’d been a car crash.</p><p><em>Oh god.</em> Was Happy okay? Was Happy alive?</p><p>He’d tried to crawl away from the car, but there had been an explosion, too close, too loud —</p><p>And then he’d been screaming, just screaming, strapped to a table, for hours and hours and hours...</p><p>“They gave you aspirin, during your surgery. They did not want to risk anything stronger. Be grateful for even that.” Huh. Tony hadn’t realized he’d been muttering out loud to himself as he sorted through his memories. And <em>hell</em> should he be <em>grateful</em> to these fuckers, whoever they were, which reminded him...</p><p>“Who are you?” Tony asked again, more firmly this time. “And where are we?”</p><p>Tony thinks what he sees and hears next will haunt him for the rest of his life — like out of this entire horrifying experience, the next moment will be the one that sticks worst, even years down the line.</p><p>A bulky figure steps out of the shadows across the room.</p><p>The figure has a dully gleaming left arm made of metal.</p><p>The arm’s not familiar, but the face… Tony would recognize that face anywhere, even covered with stubble as it is, framed by long, lank, limp hair.</p><p>Tony grew up practically eating the Captain America comics and the Howling Commandos reels for breakfast. This, the man, standing in front of him is a ghost. This is James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes.</p><p>“Where are we?” Tony asks a third time, trying and failing to suppress the tremor in his voice.</p><p>“HYDRA.”</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>“You will be the Mechanic. You will keep our Winter Soldier in top form. When the Winter Soldier is not here, you will repair the chair.”</p><p>The chair. The chair made Tony want to throw up and never stop. When he slid his glance sideways to <em>The Winter</em> <em>Soldier</em>, Tony wanted to puke some more. Just a few hours ago, the Soldier-slash-Barnes hybrid had been giving him information with a sort of desert-dry wit that Tony naturally found charming. Now, the same man was standing, stiff as a board, wearing a completely shut down visage in response to a rapid fire of several nonsense words in Russian, only a couple of which Tony had actually been able to make out.</p><p>Hell, the way he was right then, Tony would have mistaken him for a malfunctioning fledgling AI.</p><p>And <em>HYDRA</em>? The Nazi organization that was supposed to have died out at Captain America’s hand in the ‘40s? How the hell was HYDRA here, now, in the present day? Were the stories all a lie, or was something else at play? For that matter, who was Barnes, exactly, and how was he here? Unless Tony’s ability to do math had gone drastically down the drainpipe during this little tete-a-tete with HYDRA, no human being could live as long as Barnes apparently had without turning wrinkled and stooped. Yet Barnes looked fresh as a daisy. Tony had a feeling that the Super Soldier serum was in play — but he didn’t know how.</p><p>Unwillingly, Obie’s words ring out in his head.</p><p>
  <em>You have to look at the big picture, Tony.</em>
</p><p>The problem was that Tony couldn’t see the big picture. The puzzle was looking bigger and even more complicated than he’d expected, and Tony suspected he didn’t even have half the pieces he needed to complete it yet.</p><p>A boot to his ribs brings Tony out of his own mind, and he instinctively curls a hand protectively around his car battery attachment. He looks up to find poisonous eyes glaring back at him. “The chair. The asset. Do you understand?” The owner of those eyes spat down on him.</p><p>Tony took a deep breath.</p><p>He could say no.</p><p>He should say no.</p><p>He <em>wanted</em> to say no.</p><p>It was the principle of the thing, after all.</p><p>But if he said yes...</p><p>If he said yes, he could help Barnes. Tony was curious why HYDRA even needed him — didn’t they have their own mechanics and engineers?</p><p><em>But Stark Tech is always better</em>, Howard’s voice rang in his ears.</p><p>So HYDRA was after better.</p><p>And if Tony said yes, he could help. Not HYDRA, never HYDRA — but Barnes. Barnes, who looked about as unwilling to be here as Tony himself was. Barnes, who was clearly being controlled by something, some sort of — those <em>words</em> definitely had something to do with it.</p><p>It wasn’t about sparing himself torture — not really. Tony had absolutely no illusions that even if he said yes, HYDRA would make things anything but easy for him. But Barnes deserved better.</p><p>Tony would honestly have stuck his neck out for anyone. But for one of his childhood heroes...</p><p>And maybe, maybe staying with HYDRA would get him some answers. He was stuck for the moment regardless, but maybe looking like he was willing would get him access to more puzzle pieces than being outright defiant would.</p><p>Tony took a deep breath.</p><p>And said yes.</p><p>“Excellent. The chair. The asset. We look forward to a long and profitable partnership with you, Mr. Stark.”</p><p>Tony grimaced. “I’m going to need tools for this, first.” He waves a hand at his chest. “Can’t hunch over a chair or much of anything with a hole in the way.”</p><p>HYDRA glares. “Do you think we are stupid, Stark, to give you tools, machinery? <em>Weapons</em>?”</p><p>Tony shrugs, affecting casual unconcern. “If I don’t patch the hole, I’ll keel over and die within a day. Then you lose your mechanic anyway. And I’d need machinery to work on your... <em>Asset </em>or your chair anyway. Supervise me, if that’s what you want, but this? My chest is now a fixer-upper and I need to deal with it first.”</p><p>He got another kick in the side for his troubles before they all walk away from him. Great. If they gave in, great. If not… death wasn’t looking like such a horrible proposition. Not that Tony <em>wanted</em> to die, with all his unfinished business still hanging over him, but better dead than HYDRA’s pawn. At least with the hole in his chest filled, he’d have time and energy to think about escaping.</p><p>The group confers in Russian in the corner, obviously deferring to a guy with a beard. Tony’s eyes pick him out, mentally filing away the information.</p><p>“—<em>said whatever it takes</em>,” Tony could hear one of them arguing. Tony grimaced again. God. He should never have let his Russian become so rusty.</p><p>Natasha probably spoke Russian, or something close to it. Eastern European languages all had a somewhat similar foundation.</p><p>If it had been Natasha in his position, she’d already have gotten out of this position.</p><p>Finally, they come back, still glowering and unhappy, but they concede to him nonetheless, even if it is with poor grace. Tony will take the win.</p><p>“Fine, Mr. Stark. We will provide you… supplies. We will give you a basic kit in an hour. Should it fail to be adequate, you may request additional resources… within reason.”</p><p>Tony squinted, suspicious of the sudden about-face.</p><p>Bearded-guy suddenly looks even more sour. “It seems our Boss is… keen… to have you on his side. He prefers cooperation over coercion where possible, so he has instructed us to keep you… comfortable. Take the equipment we provide as a sign of good faith.”</p><p>Tony bites his tongue to avoid expressing any of the crude jokes or petty, vicious barbs in his head. “And will I meet this… boss… soon?” He asks lightly instead.</p><p>“Soon, Mr. Stark… soon.” Tony decidedly does not like the vicious smile that accompanies the man’s sentence. “In the meantime… do try to rest. After all… you will not have much time to fix your…” he gestures at the mess of wires trailing from Tony’s chest. “…before we must ask you to work on… other things.”</p><p>“Right,” Tony said flatly, under his breath as the HYDRA asshole turns to leave, leaving the Winter Soldier guarding the cell. “Chair. Asset. Got it.”</p><p>Tony sighed.</p><p>
  <em>What the fuck was he going to do now?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>What the fuck had he gotten into?</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>no Natasha this time! Assume that she’s doing her Black Widow thing somewhere. She actually won’t be a big part of the story for the next few chapters but we’ll come back around to her.</p><p>Stay safe x</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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